ensuring him was dropped.

The greatest struggle, however, came five years later, when, on January
21, 1842, Mr. Adams presented the petition of certain citizens of
Haverhill, Massachusetts, praying for the dissolution of the Union
on account of slavery. His enemies felt that now, at last, he had
delivered himself into their hands. Again arose the cry for his
expulsion, and again vituperation was poured out upon him, and
resolutions to expel him freely introduced. When he got the floor to
speak in his own defense, he faced an excited House, almost unanimously
hostile to him, and possessing, as he well knew, both the will and the
power to drive him from its walls. But there was no wavering in Mr.
Adams. "If they say they will try me," he said, "they must try me. If
they say they will punish me, they must punish me. But if they say that
in peace and mercy they will spare me expulsion, I disdain and cast away
their mercy, and I ask if they will come to such a trial and expel me. I
defy them. I have constituents to go to, and they will have something
to say if this House expels me, nor will it be long before the gentlemen
will see me here again." The fight went on for nearly a fortnight,
and on February 7 the whole subject was finally laid on the table. The
sturdy, dogged fighter, single-handed and alone, had beaten all the
forces of the South and of slavery. No more memorable fight has ever
been made by one man in a parliamentary body, and after this decisive
struggle the tide began to turn. Every year Mr. Adams renewed his motion
to strike out the gag rule, and forced it to a vote. Gradually the
majority against it dwindled, until at last, on December 3, 1844, his
motion prevailed. Freedom of speech had been vindicated in the American
House of Representatives, the right of petition had been won, and the
first great blow against the slave power had been struck.

Four years later Mr. Adams fell, stricken with paralysis, at his place
in the House, and a few hours afterward, with the words, "This is
the last of earth; I am content," upon his lips, he sank into
unconsciousness and died. It was a fit end to a great public career. His
fight for the right of petition is one to be studied and remembered, and
Mr. Adams made it practically alone. The slaveholders of the South and
the representatives of the North were alike against him. Against him,
too, as his biographer, Mr. Morse, says, was the class in Boston to
which he natural